Radio Host Loses Her Show Over English-Only Rant

[Razgovory]

Dianna Ploss, who hosted a conservative radio show in New Hampshire, filmed herself last week telling landscape workers, "It is America, you should be speaking English."
Dianna Ploss, who hosted a conservative radio show in New Hampshire, filmed herself last week telling landscape workers, "It is America, you should be speaking English."Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Derrick Bryson Taylor and Allyson Waller
July 14, 2020, 3:49 p.m. ET

A New Hampshire radio station has severed ties with a conservative radio host who berated landscape workers for speaking Spanish in a widely shared video.

The host, Dianna Ploss, "is no longer associated or affiliated in any way with WSMN or Bartis-Russell Broadcasting LLC," WSMN Broadcasting said in a statement on Sunday. "We at WSMN value freedom of speech, freedom of expression and assembly. We will not tolerate discrimination, racism or hatred."

The station added that it would continue to present on-air opportunities for "discussion, education and the exchange of opinions and ideas."

Ms. Ploss, who hosted "The Dianna Ploss Show," recorded herself on Friday confronting several employees of Morin's Landscaping as they were setting up potted trees on Main Street in Nashua, N.H., about 35 miles south of Concord, the capital.

"It is America, you should be speaking English," Ms. Ploss is heard saying in the filmed encounter, which was initially posted on Facebook and was widely shared on social media. "You should be speaking English. They work for the state, you should be speaking English."

One of the workers responds that they did not work for the state.

Ms. Ploss goes on to ask if any of the workers are in the country illegally. "Speak English," Ms. Ploss repeats to the workers.

In the video, Ms. Ploss is confronted by a man who asks why she is harassing the workers. "He's a Black man, and he's going to protect the brown man from this white woman who's practicing white privilege because she happened to walk by and heard this guy talking to all of these guys, doing this work, in Spanish," she says.

Ms. Ploss couldn't be reached for comment on Tuesday.

A fervent supporter of President Trump, Ms. Ploss has more than 43,000 followers on Facebook and more than 34,000 on Twitter. Calling herself an "America First Activist," she hosts weekly shows on Facebook Live and leads the group "Massachusetts 4 Trump."

George Russell, the owner of WSMN Broadcasting, said Tuesday that Ms. Ploss's conservative show was no longer airing on the station, adding that she had been a host at the station for two and a half years.

He said that Ms. Ploss was never employed by WSMN but rather she was a client who brokered her airtime as all hosts at the station do.

Mr. Russell said he had received thousands of complaints after the video was shared, but none of the complaints were lodged by other radio hosts at the station.

In a statement on Monday, Tom Morin, the owner of the landscaping company whose workers were targeted by Ms. Ploss, said he appreciated the support his company had received following the incident. "I believe that we can all take immense pride in how quickly the community rallied to demonstrate that this type of behavior is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated," he said.

Gary Galbo, who owns the Nashua Coins and Collectibles shop on Main Street where the video was shot, said he didn't witness the event firsthand but thought Ms. Ploss "was out of line."

"There's no place in Nashua for discrimination against Hispanics or anybody else for that matter," Mr. Galbo said Tuesday.

Ms. Ploss's video was the latest in a wave of videos of racist tirades and behavior that have often resulted in people losing their jobs.

In May, a video of a white woman calling the police on a Black man who asked her to put her dog on a leash while he was bird-watching in Central Park led to her dismissal from her finance job. In June, a St. John's University fencing coach was fired after he was recorded in a private lesson saying that Black people "steal" and "kill." And last week, a writer for the Fox News host Tucker Carlson was fired for mocking minority groups and women in an online forum.

These episodes have played out as the nation has reckoned with its racist history in the months after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

In a public video posted to her Facebook page on Monday, Ms. Ploss said she took the criticism over her remarks as "a badge of honor." Wearing a "Women for Trump" hat and sitting next to a cardboard cutout of Mr. Trump, Ms. Ploss mocked those who condemned her actions.

"Now get out of my way, because I have a country to save," she said. "That's the end of Dianna Ploss's public statement."

END COMMUNICATION

[The Brain]

Conservatives are weird.

[Eddie Teach]

Meh. She has every right to tell people to speak English, just as they have every right to tell her to fuck off in Spanish.

[Grey Fox]

Speak White!

:Rolleyes:

[Caliga]

Why do people have to be such douches to hard-working immigrants?

Also, I wonder if idiots like her realize Trump's wife and mother were both first generation immigrants whose first languages were not English?

[Admiral Yi]

I've seen a bunch of youtube clips of people yelling at Mexicans for speaking Spanish.  They're almost always older ladies.

[DGuller]

To be devil's advocate, there are situations where it shouldn't be considered racist to judge people for not speaking English if they can.  This random harassment of strangers obviously isn't it, but in a workplace environment speaking another language in front of people who do not understand it can be considered rude and exclusionary, if you can speak a language that everyone can understand.  I hate it when people talk to me in Russian at work, because I feel like replying in Russian is not appropriate when there are non-Russian speakers around, but it can also be rude to keep switching to English when they obviously want to speak to me in Russian.

[FunkMonk]

I'll never understand why these snowflakes get upset because people are working and speaking Spanish amongst themselves.

And then they act aggrieved when someone calls them a racist.

[Caliga]

One has to wonder if the Wampanoag ever yelled at the Pilgrims to "SPEAK WAMPANOAG!"

[Barrister]

Why do people have to be such douches to hard-working immigrants?

Also, I wonder if idiots like her realize Trump's wife and mother were both first generation immigrants whose first languages were not English?

Trump's mother was from Scotland...

[Admiral Yi]

Point stands. 

[Barrister]

Point stands. 

Actually I have to give this one to Caliga - googling suggests that her first language was gaelic, and she learned english in school.

[alfred russel]

I'll never understand why these snowflakes get upset because people are working and speaking Spanish amongst themselves.

And then they act aggrieved when someone calls them a racist.

It isn't racist. Ethnocentric, but not racist.

[Caliga]

Point stands. 

Actually I have to give this one to Caliga - googling suggests that her first language was gaelic, and she learned english in school.

Yep.  OWNED! 

[Zoupa]

I'll never understand why these snowflakes get upset because people are working and speaking Spanish amongst themselves.

And then they act aggrieved when someone calls them a racist.

It isn't racist. Ethnocentric, but not racist.

The overlap is close to 100%